


you taught me the courage of stars before you left

by good_ho_mens



Series: Love, Not Loved [1]
Category: Young Justice (Comics)
Genre: Bruce Wayne is a Good Parent, Canonical Character Death, Cassie Sandsmark Is A Good Friend, Clark Kent is Kal-El | Conner Kent's Parent, Damian Wayne is a good brother, Funerals, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Hopeful Ending, Hurt/Comfort, Kent farm, Lois Lane is Kal-El | Conner Kent's Parent, Sad Ending, Tim Drake is a Good Brother, Tim Drake is a Good Friend, all three tbh skjfkgj, and Jon is here and a whole innocent baby with his bff Damian the brat Wayne, i have no clue how to tag this, meaning Lois isn't DEAD fuck u, this is canon compliant but also not
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-12
Updated: 2020-11-12
Packaged: 2021-03-09 19:00:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,016
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27521176
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/good_ho_mens/pseuds/good_ho_mens
Summary: “He loved you, you know,” She says wistfully, meeting his eyes.Tim looks away. “I loved him too.”“Love.”“What?”“Love,” she repeats. “Not loved. He might be gone, but we don’t love him any less."
Relationships: Jonathan Samuel Kent & Damian Wayne, Tim Drake & Bruce Wayne, Tim Drake & Cassie Sandsmark, Tim Drake & Damian Wayne
Series: Love, Not Loved [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2016593
Comments: 10
Kudos: 139





	you taught me the courage of stars before you left

“Master Timothy,” Alfred calls softly, knocking on his door frame. He smiles sympathetically, “It is time to go, my boy.”

Tim nods, staring down numbly at the black shirt with the red ‘S’ symbol displayed on it. He straightens out the wrinkles before crumpling it up into a ball and tossing it away from his bed. “Yeah, I’m coming down.”

Alfred looks like he’s going to say something else, but then he leaves, pulling the door almost shut behind him.

Fourteen seconds. Tim gives himself fourteen seconds, counting them off carefully in his mind. He runs a hand over his hair, picks up the small cardboard box off his nightstand and tucks it into his breast pocket, turns, and resolutely marches out of his room and down the hall without looking back.

He doesn’t need to, anyway. The picture of his team has been tipped face down on his bedside table for two weeks.

Bruce is waiting at the bottom of the stairs, pulling at his cuff links and looking slow and subdued in a way Tim isn’t used to. He looks up as Tim reaches the bottom step, and he smiles, but the corner of his eyes don’t crinkle familiarly. “Hey, chum.”

“Hey,” Tim greets, hoarse. Come to think of it, he can’t remember the last time he spoke before Alfred came to get him. His voice is definitely rough from it.

Stepping forward, Bruce brushes his palms across Tim’s shoulders, patting out his suit jacket. His fingers find his tie, straightening it out slightly. “How are you feeling?”

“Remember that time my throat got slit?”

“Unfortunately.”

“Worse.”

“We don’t have to do this.”

“Yeah,” Tim says, rubbing uselessly at his eyes, “I do.”

Bruce cups the back of his neck, knocking his forehead against Tim’s once before stepping back. “I’m proud of you.”

Tim almost asks why when a disgruntled Damian walks into the room, wrestling with the tie around his neck. Tim snorts, kneeling in front of him and swatting his hands away. “Let me. You’re coming?”

“At Jonathan’s request. He wishes for… emotional support.” Damian makes a face, “Odd that he would choose me for that.”

“You’re his best friend,” Tim explains, his chest aching. He tightens Damian’s neck tie, fixing his collar and swallowing thickly. “That’s the only reason he needs.”

Damian doesn’t reply, but he nods stiffly, and Tim watches as he squares his shoulders and sets his jaw.

Bruce sets a hand on Tim’s back softly, steering his sons to the door. “Come on, we’ll zeta to Kansas and drive the rest of the way to the farm.”

Once upon a time, Tim used to joke that taking the zeta to Kansas was ironic, especially since they’d literally fought villains named Oz. It used to make them laugh, him and…

Well, him and no one, anymore.

He barely registers that they zeta, or that Alfred has his cleaning apron with him, or that Damian sits on the seat closest to him in the back of the car, instead of by the opposite door.

Part of him wonders how long it’s going to take, to start feeling just a little alive again. He thinks that maybe the part that makes him feel that way died with his best friend.

His breath hitches, and he can see both Alfred and Bruce glance at him in concern through the rearview mirror, ready to pull over and calm him down from a panic attack if need be.

Embarrassing. 

Suddenly, breaking through the cloud around his head, there’s pressure against his hand, and Tim looks down to see Damian grasping it, squeezing tightly, palm to palm. Damian himself is staring resolutely out the front window. Tim turns his gaze back to their hands, and doesn’t look away until the car stops.

He pulls himself out first, sliding his hand out of Damian’s as he goes. Under his feet is a dirt driveway that’s so familiar and so wrong all at once. There are cars lining it up and down, and soft voices drifting from the Kent’s backyard.

The sun is bright and hot, immediately drawing sweat from the back of Tim’s neck and under his arms, his heavy suit jacket no help at all. He squints upwards to glare at the sky. 

It should be raining. 

In every movie or tv show or book, it always rains at a funeral. Kon deserves it, rain. He deserves to have the sky mourn him as much as the people. It even rained at his mother’s funeral, and Kon definitely deserves it more than his mother.

It shouldn’t be sunny, and the sky shouldn’t be blue.

Maybe it only rains at funerals when people feel like they should hide their tears.

Tim just about asks if it’s too late to turn around and go home.

“Tim!” A voice calls, and Tim squints in the sun, watching Cassie make her way over to him, dressed in a plain black dress and black boots, a black headband holding her hair back from her face as the wind whips it every which way. Tim doesn’t think she ever looks anything but beautiful, honestly, no matter the circumstance.

She wraps her arms around his neck the second he’s in reach, and he snakes his around her waist slowly, mouth tucked into her shoulder. She’s wearing perfume, one he’s only seen her put on for special occasions or when her mom makes her.

Tim takes a deep breath. “Hey, Cassie.”

Pulling back, Cassie slides her arms away so she can cup his jaw with both hands. She tilts her head, eyes watery. “When was the last time you slept?”

The familiarity and concern startles a quiet laugh out of him, and he lifts his hand to brush gently at one of the dark circles under her eyes with his index finger. “I could ask you the same thing.”

“I’ve gotten some hours here and there,” Cassie replies. She pulls his head down so their foreheads touch, closing her eyes. “I’m sorry I wasn’t there, that day.”

“So am I.”

“Look at the two of us, missing half the set.”

Tim furrows his eyebrows, “Bart’s not here?”

“No one told you?” Cassie asks, looking over his shoulder to where he knows Bruce is standing.

Tim looks back too, but the only expression Bruce has on his face is annoyed confusion, obviously, he didn’t know, and he’s never happy about not knowing. Tim would’ve laughed, if it were any other day, about any other person. “Tell me what?”

“Bart gave up the hero life,” Cassie says quietly, “He lost his powers, and gave his suit back to Jay.”

“But why isn’t he _here?”_

“I think he feels guilty. The whole reason he came back in the first place was to warn us about Prime.”

Tim feels his gut twist, the bile in his throat. He wants to be angry, to find Bart and shake some sense into him because Kon was their friend and they don’t give up on friends like that. He opens his mouth to say so when another car pulls into the driveway, another attendee. Another person riddled with grief. “He did everything he could.”

“We both know Bart won’t see it that way,” Cassie tells him.

“He got out?”

“Yeah.”

The black clothes they’re all wearing clash with the green grass and hot Kansas sun. Tim thinks that he’s been to too many of these. That he never wants to go to another one again.

“Good.”

Cassie’s eyes fill with tears, probably guessing exactly what he’s thinking, because Cassie is like that. She rubs her thumb over his cheek bone. “I should get back to my mom.”

“Okay.” Tim leans down, pressing a kiss to her hairline. She leans into it, and they stand there for a moment, before she finally turns away. 

“You better find me later,” Cassie says with a watery laugh.

Tim watches as she gets further away. “You got it.”

He’s not sure what to do, after that, so he turns to Bruce, who’s already there, a hand under his elbow. “Let’s go.”

Alfred reaches over and tucks his hair behind his ear, and Damian positions himself so his hip is almost brushing against Tim’s leg, then the four of them make their way to the Kent’s backyard, and Kon’s funeral.

It takes twenty seven seconds for Lois to spot them from where she’s standing, speaking quietly to Ma Kent and Diana. Her face lights up, just a little bit, and she excuses herself, walking towards Tim and his family with purpose.

“Bruce,” She greets warmly, and Bruce kisses her cheek, squeezing her shoulder. “Thank you for coming.”

“Of course, Lois.” Bruce looks around, scanning the yard. “Where’s Clark?”

Her face twists, and she glances at the house. “He’s inside. I haven’t been able to…”

“I understand,” Bruce says warmly, and Tim realizes that yeah, he does. Probably better than anyone here. He knows what it’s like to lose children.

Without even thinking about it, Tim’s arm lifts to wrap around Damian’s shoulders. Damian lets him.

Bruce turns to them, eyebrows low. “Will you two be okay?”

Damian nods mutely, and Tim tries at a smile, “Go, he needs you.”

Before he leaves, Bruce ruffles Damian’s hair and bends over a little to kiss the top of Tim’s head. “I’ll be back.”

Watching him walk towards the house, Tim doesn’t see Batman or Brucie, it’s just Bruce. A friend and a father, who knows all too well the feeling of loss.

“Miss Lane, if I may, I’ve brought my cleaning apron and a few of my must-need cleaning tools,” Alfred says. He smiles warmly, “I’m quite aware how grief can cause our daily life to fall into disrepair. While you are all outside, I would consider it a pleasure to help get your house in order before you retire tonight.”

Lois gapes at him, her pink eyes rapidly turning red. Her voice wavers when she speaks, “Oh, Alfred, you don’t have to-”

“Please,” Alfred interrupts, setting a gentle hand on her arm. “When Master Dick was thought to be dead, your mother in law came to the manor once a week to help me prepare meals and clean. The least I can do is return the favor for her own grandson.”

“If you-” Lois takes a deep breath. “Thank you, Alfred. We’re all lucky to have you.”

Alfred raises an eyebrow, glancing at Tim and Damian to wink. “Indeed, my dear.”

He leaves with an air of decorous, humming softly to himself.

“Some grandpa,” Lois compliments. Damian nods vivaciously.

Clearing his throat, Tim attempts to look not completely dead. “I’m really sorry, Lois, about Kon.”

“He loved you, you know,” She says wistfully, meeting his eyes. 

Tim looks away. “I loved him too.”

“Love.”

“What?”

Lois lifts his chin with her fingertips, giving him a soft, watery smile that makes Tim ache for his mother in a way he knows was never realistic. He recognizes the look in her eyes, the same look Bruce used to give him when he first became Robin, just after Jason’s death. Like seeing someone in him they wish was there but knows is not. 

“Love,” she repeats. “Not loved. He might be gone, but we don’t love him any less, just like he’s gone, but he isn’t any less your friend, or any less my- any less my son.”

Tim remembers the first time Kon called Lois mom. He remembers because the four of them, him, Kon, Bart and Cassie, were at YJ Headquarters, and she’d called to ask if he remembered his toothbrush, and when he hung up Kon had said “love you too, mom” like it was the easiest thing to say.

He had a crisis for two hours before Lois showed up at the door and hugged him so hard she almost knocked them both over.

He’s pretty sure Cassie still has the pictures on her phone. Tim’s eyes burn. 

“I love him, too,” Tim amends quietly. 

Lois smiles, and then turns to Damian, still tucked under Tim’s arm. He’s staring at both of them with an awed expression that he quickly wipes away when he notices them looking.

Tim wonders if they’re thinking the same thing-- their best friends really got lucky in the mom department. 

“Jon is over by the chairs,” She tells Damian, pulling her hands away from Tim’s face. Tim immediately misses the contact. “He’s been waiting for you.”

Damian nods, moving like he’s going to walk right over there, and then he stops, and looks up at Tim. He makes a valiant effort trying to sound mature as he says, “Can you come with me?”

Tim nods, and then looks back at Lois. “I’m sorry I didn’t save him.”

Lois’ eyebrows lower and she shakes her head. “Oh, but Tim, you did save him.”

Damian drags him away by tugging on his hand, and Tim lets him, watching Lois as they leave, just smiling in the sad way Tim knows only grieving parents can. She doesn’t move the whole time, and then they turn around the corner of the house and she’s out of sight.

Tim finally looks away, spotting Jon sitting alone in a group of chairs, all lined up in neat rows, facing forward. Some of the people milling about look like they want to talk to him, but think better of it. Damian stops in his tracks, and Tim almost runs into him.

“What?”

“I do not know what to say.”

Tim adjusts his hold on Damian’s hand and crouches down, his stiff dress shoes squeaking as they bend when he balances on his toes. “Damian, Jon still knows who you are, he won’t expect anything but you.”

“I am callous and apathetic and rude.”

“You’re holding my hand, and last night you slept on the floor of your bedroom so Ace could have your bed.”

“He’s getting old,” Damian mutters. Then he nods. “You are correct. Jon has no misgivings about my personality. If he wished for a sympathetic shoulder to cry on, he should have invited one of his baby school friends.”

Tim stands and shakes his head. “Yeah, okay, just maybe don’t tell him that.”

Damian starts walking again, stopping in front of the chair next to Jon’s. “Kent.”

Jon looks up, eyes widening, and then he grins. “Damian! You came!”

“Obviously,” Damian scoffs. “Why are you sitting alone?”

“Oh. It’s just easier. All the grown ups just talk to me like a baby and offer me brownies, like chocolate will bring him back.”

Damian clears his throat. “Imbeciles, the lot of them. Perhaps you would rather company of the not-adult variety.”

Grin turning soft, and tears threatening dangerously to fall from his eyes, Jon nods and pats the folding chair Damian’s standing in front of. “Only if you want to stay.”

Scoffing again, Damian sits. He crosses his arms, but says nothing as Jon drops his head down on Damian’s shoulder. He just pats his leg robotically. “Of course I want to stay.”

With a soft smile, Tim turns his head to send Kon a look and coo, ‘remember when we were that emotionally stunted?’. He turns his head to send Kon a look and Kon isn’t there. His smile drops, and not for the first time in the past two weeks, the world falls apart.

He wishes it would rain.

“Tim?” Jon calls quietly. Tim looks down to see both boys staring at him. There’s a dark spot on Damian’s shoulder and tear tracks on Jon’s nose, and there's snot dribbling from his nose to his lip, which is gross, but neither of them seem to care. So much for baby school friends.

Tim realizes he’s just been standing awkwardly next to them, and sits down jerkily. “Hey, Jon. How’re you doing?”

“Squirt.”

“What?”

“If you’re trying to mirror Kon’s speaking patterns to comfort me, you have to say squirt at the end. He always called me that.”

Well, he’s definitely Lois’ kid. Tim snorts and nods, “I’ll keep that in mind.”

Jon sits up, reaching under him to drag a small bag out from beneath his seat. He shoves his hand inside, and when he pulls it back out again he’s holding a small gray glasses case. He passes it to Tim. “I think he probably would have given these to you, if he ever made a will.”

He didn’t, Tim knows that. If he had he wouldn’t have gotten so angry when he found Tim writing his own.

He takes the case, flicking it open and biting back the whimper that bubbles up in his throat when he sees what’s inside. “Kon’s sunglasses. He loved these.”

“Yeah.” Jon drops his head back down onto Damian’s shoulder, and Damian only shifts, giving him more room. Jon smiles, “When me and Damian-”

“Damian and I.”

“You’re the worst,” Jon whispers to Damian. He rolls his eyes. “Well, when we met, and sort of hated each other-- stop rolling your eyes, Damian, you know it was only sort of-- anyway, Kon used to say ‘the bats are hard to get along with, but once you figure out how, you’re set for life’.”

Damian twists his neck to look at his friend. Jon reaches up tiredly and pokes his nose. 

“That sounds like something he’d say,” Tim says softly, thinking about all the fights they used to have, the power struggle and the need for respect. Set for life, huh? Sure.

“He was right,” Jon tells him. “He was set for life, even if it was a short one. He really, really liked you.”

The glasses case sits limply in his hand, and he goes to shut it, but sees Jon’s face, and carefully lifts the sunglasses up with two fingers. They’re cold, and one of the legs is dented from the time Kon and Bart tried to have an obstacle race around Young Justice Headquarters, and Kon slipped by the pool and hit his head on a wall.

Tim chuckles at the memory, catching his reflection in the lenses.

God, he looks awful.

He tucks the sunglasses into the front of his collar, so they hang over his tie, and snaps the case shut with a click. He reaches around Damian to set a hand on Jon’s head. “Thank you.”

“He really, really liked you, too,” Damian tells Jon, and Tim looks away. He can hear them whispering to each other, but he drones it out. This part is for them.

When Bruce sits down next to him and leans forward, bracing his elbows on his knees, Tim tips haphazardly to the side, secure in knowing either Bruce’s large frame will break his fall or Bruce will catch him.

Turns out it’s the former, and his cheek connects to Bruce’s shoulder as he huffs. 

“Do you need anything?”

Yes. He needs Kon. “Rain.”

Bruce chuckles, but it’s hoarse, and Tim’s eyebrows furrow. He sits up halfway, opening his mouth, but Bruce waves his hand. “Don’t worry about it. Just my talk with Clark.”

“Oh.” Tim pulls at his suit jacket’s cuffs. “How is he?”

Humming lowly, Bruce shrugs. “You know.”

Tim’s mind is filled with the image of Bruce staring at Jason’s Robin suit, jaw set, slumped over Dick’s picture, eyes hollow, cradling Damian’s body, expression broken. He drops his head back to his shoulder. “Yeah, dad, I know.”

Slowly, every member of the funeral crowd ambles over to the cluster of chairs. They’re all facing a coffin that Tim has very pointedly ignored until now, and a smiling picture of his best friend, surrounded by flower bouquets and wreaths.

Kon will be buried on the farm grounds, next to Clark’s dad, the man Jon is named after. 

Tim knows that after they all go home, and Lois and Jon go inside, Clark will carry Kon’s coffin all on his own to the grave plot. He knows because he knows Bruce, and the two of them are more alike then some might think.

“What did you do when you lost Clark?” Tim asks quietly. Sure, Clark came back, but he still died. He still put his friends through that.

Bruce sits back and wraps an arm around Tim. “I grieved.”

Tim very much wishes it would rain.

Once everyone is seated, and Lois has sat herself down on Jon’s other side, holding his hand tightly, Clark stands.

There’s a paper in his hand, scribbled in inky blue handwriting. He doesn’t have his glasses on, and his suit is a little bit wrinkled, and his eyes are red.

Just like Bruce, Tim realizes this isn’t Clark Kent the reporter, or Superman, this is just Clark, a father and a friend who knows all too well the feeling of loss.

Clark opens his mouth as if to speak, and then shuts it again. He looks down at the paper, and back up, and something in his face freezes.

The gathering is silent. Clark blinks rapidly, but it’s like he can’t open his mouth. It almost looks like he’s trying very hard not to turn and look at Kon’s coffin.

Bruce twitches, scooting forward slightly on his seat like he wants to do something, and a few seats down, Lois starts to stand, the tears on her cheeks reflecting in the sun.

Jon beats them all to it.

He pulls himself away from Damian and closes the space between him and his dad in a second, stopping at his side. It’s so quiet, Tim wonders if everyone is holding their breaths, or if it’s just him.

Then, Jon takes his father’s hand, and a tear slips over Clark’s nose, and he starts to speak.

“Conner, or Kon-El, is my son,” He starts.

Is, not was. Love, not loved.

Clark glances down, pulling his arm up and scooping Jon onto his hip in one swift movement. He clears his throat. “Kon didn’t come to us under normal circumstances, when I first met him, I was wary. Wary of who he was, wary of what he meant. I’ve spent the last six years making up for that.”

Kon pacing in his room, ranting about the hero who can’t even look him in the eye. Kon shouting at the sky in the middle of a corn field in Kansas, asking what a newborn baby with a human name has that he doesn’t while Tim sits on the hood of Pa Kent's old truck, Kon calling him to tell him Superman took him to a baseball game. Kon with tears in his eyes and the word dad on his lips before he’s swept up into a hug by a Kryptonian. Kon complaining about curfews and chores when he really couldn’t be happier to have them.

Kon finding his family when he was never meant to have one.

Tim blinks hard, focusing on Clark’s words.

“I never thought I’d be a father,” He says, and Jon wraps his arms around his neck. “But after I got to know Conner, there was no doubt in my mind that that’s exactly what I would be.”

Bruce grunts, deep in his throat, and his arm tightens around Tim.

“Kon asked me once, if I was a hero or a father first.” Tim could swear he looks straight at Bruce. “I think all of you know the answer to that, but I told him, that I am a hero when I am on a mission, or when someone needs my help, but before and after and between and during, I am always a dad.”

Tim feels the sudden need to check on Damian, but when he looks, he’s sitting on Lois’ lap, one of her arms wrapped around his waist and the other buried in his hair. As if sensing he’s looking, Damian turns to meet his eyes. They stare at each other, and then Damian gives him an almost interceptable smile, before turning away again.

Tim drags his eyes away, and back to Clark, who is still smiling. 

“I think that Kon would have liked that it’s sunny today. He never liked cliches, and he never liked funerals. He always said that he didn’t see the point of wandering around like sad zombies, when that isn’t at all how those people lived. I used to tell him that funerals weren’t really for the dead, but the people they leave behind.” Clark scans the crowd, “So however you saw my son, however you loved him, this funeral is for you, but the sun… the sun is for him.”

Tim doesn’t want it to rain anymore.

The funeral services last another hour, Lois speaks, but Tim has to bury his head under Bruce’s arm and block it out, because if there’s one thing that can finally break him, it’s Lois Lane.

He’s glad Jon doesn’t speak, and spends the rest of the time on the ground at Clark’s feet, legs entangled with Damian’s. 

When it’s over, Tim tries very hard not to make it look like he’s impatient to leave, shaking people’s hands and letting Ma Kent pile pies in his arms and make him promise to call if he needs more.

“Tim,” Clark calls to him, just when he’s so close to a clear path to the car.

Attempting not to sound desperate, Tim waves. “Hey, uncle Clark.”

Clark smiles and nods his head towards the house, “Come on.”

The house? No, no Tim would not like to go in the house.

He doesn’t have much of a choice when Bruce takes the pies from him, and Cassie comes up from behind him, linking her arm in his. She’s wearing a leather jacket, and it only takes a few seconds to recognize it as Kon’s. 

“Jon?” She asks, pointing at the glasses hanging from his throat.

“Yeah.” He nods back, “You?”

“Yeah.”

“Do you think he had something for Bart in there?”

Cassie holds up the large bag in her hand. “Boots.”

Bart was always jealous of those. Tim starts to say as much when they reach the back door to the house. Tim skids to a stop, and Cassie turns to frown at him. He shakes his head, “I can’t, Cassie.”

“Hey,” She says softly, setting the bag down on the porch so she can use the hand to pat his chest, just over his heart. “You and me. Together.”

“I can’t.”

“You can,” Cassie insists. “You’re just scared.”

Terrified, more like. He nods anyway, and lets Cassie pull him gently across the threshold. 

The house is cool, and it smells like apples and the cologne both Clark and Kon use. It smells like his friend.

He catches Cassie as she stumbles, and her bottom lip trembles. “Sorry. Sorry, I forgot how much it smells like- sorry.”

“Don’t apologize for missing him,” Tim tells her. “Not to me.”

Clark reappears, and Tim isn’t sure when he’d left. He’s carrying two boxes, and Tim realizes in horror that he is getting even more stuff that belonged to Kon.

Then Clark opens the first box, and inside is-

“Is that my skateboard?” Cassie almost shouts, rushing forward to pull it out of the box. “I thought Cissie stole it!”

“No.” Clark laughs, and his eyes crinkle. “Kon had a tendency to take stuff from his friends. He said it made him feel like he was always with you.”

“Liar, he just wanted my skateboard, the bitch,” Cassie mutters.

Tim steps forward slowly, opening the second box. He makes a face, pulling out the first item. “Is this the Nightwing plushie Bart won me at a carnival?”

“Four years ago?” Cassie asks incredulously.

“He spent like, eighty bucks on that game,” Tim says. “Of my money.”

“When was it not your money?” Cassie lifts a soft bathrobe out of her box. “Hey! I stole this from that hotel in Chicago!”

“No, I bought it when I gave the room key back.”

“Well, case and point, I guess. Always your money.”

Tim pulls out the high tech science kit he had custom made for himself back when he was trying to out-chemist the Scarecrow. “Kon didn’t even like science!”

“I bet you he just wanted to make bombs,” Cassie says absently, pulling pink bunny slippers out of her box.

Clark hums, hands in his pockets. “In the barn, scared the cows half to death.”

Both Tim and Cassie freeze, turning to look at each other. Cassie speaks up first, voice meak. “We’re sorry, Mr. Kent. We didn’t mean to-”

“Nothing to be sorry for.” Clark smiles as he runs his fingers along a spare Robin cape in Tim’s box. “It’s nice, to remember.”

“Yeah,” Tim agrees roughly.

Clark smiles at them both. “Well, this stuff is yours, you can take however much of it you want. I’ll leave you alone.”

“Thank you, Mr. Kent,” Cassie calls after him.

Turning with his hand on the door, Clark’s eyes glaze over as they slide over the two of them. “He never stopped talking about the three of you. I think you were his family before we were.”

Tim’s voice is stuck in his throat, keeping back everything he wants to say. As always, Cassie to the rescue. “We loved him too.”

“Love,” Tim corrects without thinking, meeting her eyes.

She smiles, and Tim thinks that he knows what Bart meant now, that night at three am when he said that everyone falls in love with Cassie Sandsmark. She nods. “Love.”

Clark is gone when they break eye contact.

They keep digging through the boxes, quietly this time. Tim finds his old Wayne Enterprises hoodie at the bottom, but when he presses it to his face, it smells like Kon.

He shrugs off his jacket to put it on, when the small box falls from his pocket. He stares at it on the ground, and then picks it up slowly. “Cassie.”

“What’s up?”

Tim holds the box out to her. “This is for you.”

Cassie frowns, taking it gingerly. “Did it get put in the wrong box?”

“No.” Tim shrugs the hoodie on over his head, sticking his arms through the sleeves. “It’s from me.”

Furrowing her eyebrows and giving him a perplexed look, Cassie opens the box. Immediately, her eyes turn glossy. “Is this-”

“I know we haven’t been there in years, and it’s mostly used for storage now, but-”

He’s cut off as the air is knocked out of him, a girl with the power of Zues slamming against his chest will do that. She presses her face into his collarbone, shaking under his arms as he settles them around her. “That was _home,_ Tim.”

“I know.”

“Do you remember? The night we had a housewarming party, three months after we’d moved our stuff in?”

“Bart said that it might’ve been three months since it became our HQ, but that was the first day it was home.”

“And Kon said- Kon said, ‘well if this is home, then we’re a family’.”

Tim cups the back of Cassie’s head with his hand as she clutches his hoodie. “We were a family, weren’t we?”

“Are,” Cassie corrects, voice breaking. 

“Are,” Tim agrees shakily.

She looks up at him, “Promise me something?”

“Anything.”

“When I use this, you’ll be with me.” She sniffs. “You’ll go home with me.”

“Promise.” Wiping a few tears off her cheeks, Tim nods. He lifts the old key out of the box, running his fingers across the worn scratches on the metal. He’d found it in a pile of his old gear, tucked into a hidden pocket, the key to the safe house that became Young Justice Headquarters. Unclasping the chain it hangs on and reclasping it around Cassie’s neck, he lifts her hair out from under it. “Promise me?”

“Anything.”

“Bart will be there too.”

“Promise,” Cassie whispers. Outside, a woman calls her name, and she steps back. “I have to go.”

“That’s okay.” Tim drops his hands from her waist. “We’ll bring something for Kon, so a piece of him is always home, too.”

Cassie nods, hoisting her box onto her hip. Her voice still wavers when she points at him, backing out the door. “I love you.”

“I love you too.”

“Stay in touch, Boy Wonder,” She tells him.

He watches her go with a deeper ache for what he used to have than ever before. “You too, Wonder Girl.”

Alfred finds him standing in the kitchen, and leads him to the car, his hand never leaving Tim’s shoulder until he’s buckled safely next to Damian.

Tim makes it to the manor before he breaks.

He stumbles out of the car, the driveway gravel digging into his knees as he falls. His palms hit the ground right after as his breath comes in gasps, like he’s drowning.

Kon’s blood was warm, but his body was cold, and the anger in Cassie’s eyes was something he’d never seen before. The world was just red, red, red, and Superboy’s blue eyes that were far too still. 

An arm wraps around his chest, pulling him up off the ground and against something firm but soft. Bruce presses his lips to Tim’s temple and whispers reassurances he can’t hear.

“He’s gone,” Tim chokes out, the hand in his hair starts to brush through it slowly. “He- he’s my best friend.”

“I know,” Bruce whispers as hot tears roll down Tim’s face. “I’m so sorry.”

“I love him.”

“I know.”

"I love him. I love him, _I love him,”_ Tim repeats until his throat is so sore all he can do is wheeze, gripping at Bruce’s arms and gasping for air between sobs.

He wakes up in his bed, a glass of water and two Advil on his bedside table.

Ignoring them, he picks up his laptop from the foot of his bed. He flips it open, closing all his open tabs and scrolling through saved files until he finds the one he’s looking for.

_‘Timothy Drake-Wayne’s Last Will and Testament’._

He deletes it before he can think twice.

The door to his room creaks open slowly, and a mess of dark hair and a pair of bright green eyes peak through. “Oh. You’re awake. Finally.”

“Damian?” Tim asks blearily, rubbing his eyes. “What are you doing?”

“Making sure you are still breathing.”

“How long have you been checking in?”

“Every twenty minutes.”

Tim frowns at him, “You should be sleeping.”

“I was. I had a nightmare,” Damian tells him matter of factly. “Jonathan died.”

“I’m sorry, Damian, that must have sucked,” Tim tells him, knowing full well that it does, in fact, suck ass.

“No.” Damian steps further into his room, shutting Tim’s door behind him. “I’m sorry.”

Tim frowns, setting aside his computer. “Why?”

Socked feet padding quietly across his thick carpet, Damian comes to a stop in front of Tim's bed. He’s wearing fleece Robin pjs, the design obviously from Jason’s run. Hesitantly, he pats the bed next to Tim. “May I?”

Just a little shocked, Tim automatically scoots over, giving Damian room to climb up on the bed. “Dami?”

“I’m sorry that you lost him,” Damian says, his face pinched. “I can’t imagine- the idea of losing Jonathan, it makes me…”

“Want to go straight to Kansas and make sure he’s safe yourself?”

Damian huffs. “Yes. So I am sorry. You should not have had to lose him like that.”

His throat throbbing, Tim nods. He wraps an arm around Damian and bodily moves him to lean against his side. Damian, for once, goes without argument. The heaviness of the last few weeks settles over him like a weighted blanket, but instead of comfort he only feels like he’s suffocating.

“You love him, don’t you,” Tim says more than asks, and he knows he doesn’t have to tell Damian who he’s talking about.

Damian presses his face against Tim’s neck, his nose is cold. Silence stretches between them.

Then, Damian nods. “Yes.”

“Don’t let yourself forget.”

“Never.”

Outside his window comes the pattering tap of water as the Gotham skies open, and it finally starts to rain.


End file.
